


Daisies in Yellow Paper

by paperstorm



Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Evanstan - Freeform, M/M, POV Chris Evans, Romance, Sebastian is generally pouty and Chris is generally sweet and caring, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23269879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: Sebastian gets sick, Chris takes care of him.
Relationships: Chris Evans/Sebastian Stan
Comments: 31
Kudos: 234





	Daisies in Yellow Paper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [julienwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/julienwrites/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [小雛菊](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23491951) by [sashach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashach/pseuds/sashach)



> This was done for the lovely Caleb who wanted sick Seb being pitiful and Chris being the best nurse-slash-boyfriend. Thank you so much honey!!

Chris rolls over in bed, still warm and sleepy and he floats in it for a few more minutes, comfortable on his back with soft blankets loosely around him. Memories of the night before flutter through his mind. Sebastian is beautiful always, but especially when he’s needy and wanting and giving every inch of himself over to Chris. It’s the fifth night in a row he’s both fallen asleep with and woken up with Sebastian, and Chris is beginning to wonder how he’ll cope once he has to sleep alone again. It’s too nice, being here. Too easy and enjoyable and comfortable.  
  
When he’s with it just a bit more, Chris turns his head on the pillow to the side, squinting in the morning light at the body next to him. Sebastian is on his side, facing Chris, but with his eyes still closed. They aren’t the relaxed, still asleep sort of closed, though. His forehead is pulled into a frown; slight, but enough for Chris to notice even though he’s not entirely awake yet. He reaches over with a heavy arm, cupping his boyfriend’s face and rubbing his thumb lightly over the wrinkled skin to smooth it.  
  
Sebastian’s lips curve into a soft smile. “Mornin’,” he drawls quietly, without opening his eyes.  
  
“Doin’ alright?” Chris asks him. “Bad dream?”  
  
Sebastian shakes slowly, and finally lifts his eyelids, gracing Chris with those wintery blue eyes that Chris adores. They turn especially silver in morning light. “Must’ve slept funny,” Sebastian says, rolling his shoulders. “My neck’s a little sore.”  
  
Chris turns onto his side. He pulls gently at Sebastian’s bare shoulder, urging him to snuggle in so Chris can feel all that warm, smooth skin against his own. Sebastian does, wincing a little as he moves, and then Chris feels badly for making him move. He gets Sebastian’s sleep-warm body in his arms, cradling him gently as Sebastian tucks his face into the familiar spot between Chris’s neck and shoulder.  
  
“Want me to give you a massage later?” Chris asks, pressing a kiss to Sebastian’s messy hair. It’s getting long again, and Chris loves having a bit more to tug on.  
  
“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Sebastian answers, with a slow exhale as he relaxes further into Chris’s embrace. Chris has to pee a little, but he holds it off for as long as possible, content for a while to just linger with Sebastian against him, their legs tangled underneath the quilt.  
  
* * *  
  
He does rub Sebastian’s shoulders, mid-morning after coffee and breakfast and the latest episode of the nature documentary they’ve been binging during his week-long stay at Sebastian’s artsy apartment in TriBeCa. He fetches some baby oil from the bathroom and lies Sebastian out on the bed with some towels underneath him to catch any drips, drizzling the smooth liquid over the gorgeous lines of his muscled back and spreads it around, digging his fingers into aching muscles while Sebastian hums appreciatively underneath him. Chris can’t keep a satisfied smile off his face. He loves taking care of people, and Sebastian doesn’t broadcast it around but secretly he loves being taken care of, so they’re a perfect match.  
  
* * *  
  
Chris leaves the apartment mid-afternoon with a popped collar tugged high and a baseball cap tugged low, sunglasses on just to be safe even though it’s overcast today so he doesn’t really need them, and heads to a small, family-owned grocery store two blocks from Sebastian’s building. He picks up milk and eggs and a few things he needs to cook his mother’s famous shrimp linguine recipe for dinner tonight. He picks up some wine, too, because it’s more romantic than beer or whiskey. He’s gone less than an hour, and manages to go unrecognized even though he has to take his sunglasses off inside the store to see properly. He thinks a kid in his early twenties might have given him a funny look and a double take as he walks home with reusable shopping bags, but Chris doesn’t stop to look twice and the kid carries on his own way. He’s somewhat perfected the art of hiding in plain sight, and the fact that he apparently looks taller on screen than he really is works to his advantage when he’s trying not to be spotted. He imagines people more often think _oh, that guy kinda looks like Chris Evans_ than they do _wait that **is** Chris Evans._  
  
When he returns, Sebastian isn’t where Chris left him, at the kitchen table with his laptop and a stack of financial papers to be dealt with. Instead he’s on the couch, fully horizontal but curled into a ball as much as his six-foot frame will allow, with the blanket Chris’s mom had knitted him draped over his body and pulled tightly around his shoulders.  
  
Chris’s eyes widen. He sets the grocery bags onto the counter next to the stove, managing not to just drop them dramatically from his hands although that was his first instinct, and hurries over to his boyfriend.  
  
“Seb?” he asks, sitting on the coffee table and reaching out to thread his fingers through Sebastian’s hair. “Baby?”  
  
“Cold,” Sebastian mutters, cracking one eye open adorably to peer up at Chris.  
  
Chris slides his hand around to Sebastian’s cheek and brings the other one forward to feel his forehead. It’s blazing hot, the skin like a heating pad under his palms. “Shit, you’ve definitely got a fever.”  
  
Sebastian hums noncommittally, eyes closing again as his shoulders move in a perceptible shiver.  
  
“Did you take your temperature?”  
  
His head shakes, moving on the decorative throw pillow he’s using to cushion it. Before he heads for the bathroom, Chris grabs a second blanket from the back of a brown leather chair and tucks it around Sebastian. He finds the digital thermometer in the medicine cabinet, and runs the tip of it under scalding water for a minute before he takes it back to the living room.  
  
“Open,” he commands, smiling to himself when Sebastian’s lips part obediently and Chris can tuck the thermometer under his tongue. After a minute it beeps, and Chris pulls it out to read the display.  
  
“103.” He swears again. “That’s high.”  
  
“I’m not sick,” Sebastian says.  
  
Chris huffs a laugh through his nose.  
  
“I’m _not_.”  
  
“Just naturally toasty?” Chris asks with a raised eyebrow. A melody pops into his head, and he teasingly sings, “ _hot blooded, check it and see, I’ve got a fever of a hundred and three_.”  
  
“Don’t make me laugh,” Sebastian groans, “everything hurts.”  
  
“You’re not sick though,” Chris confirms.  
  
“I have things to do this week, once you go. Meetings. A photo shoot. I am not sick,” Sebastian insists petulantly.  
  
He’s very, very cute when he pouts, and Chris has to bite back the urge to flop down onto the couch with him and snuggle the crap out of him. “Yeah, of course not. Fully healthy, with aches and pains and a fever.”  
  
“Glad we agree.” Sebastian turns his face into the pillow as if it, too, is cold.  
  
“Whatever you say. Hold tight, I’ll be right back.”  
  
Chris gets up, and as he hurries off, he hears Sebastian respond, “I’ll be here.”  
  
Chris gets a third blanket, this one from the linen closet, and sticks it into the dryer in the bathroom with a wet washcloth. While it runs, he gets a pillow from the bed, a glass of water, and an extra strength Tylenol, and takes them all back into the living room once the blanket is sufficiently warmed. While Sebastian continues grumbling about how he’s _not sick_ , Chris replaces the pillow under his head with a better one, makes him take the painkiller to reduce his fever, and tucks the heated blanket snuggly around him, making sure not to leave an inch of him exposed to the cool air.  
  
He settles on the floor, leaning back against the couch, and puts _Aladdin_ , Sebastian’s favorite Disney movie, onto the TV. It’s 45 minutes and three reheated blankets before Sebastian finally stops shivering.  
  
* * *  
  
Chris sleeps on the couch that night. It’s an entire argument, during which Chris tries very resolutely to remain patient because Sebastian _is_ sick, regardless of what he says. Sebastian refuses to sleep in the bed with Chris and risk infecting him – “I thought you weren’t sick,” Chris reminds, and Sebastian rolls his eyes and tells Chris to fuck off – and Chris refuses to let Sebastian sleep on the couch in his own home, so the end result is neither of them happy and Chris on the couch. He’d had some plans for his last night here, that included dinner on Sebastian’s rooftop patio and a romantic movie and liberal use of chocolate sauce later, and he regretfully tucks the ideas away for another time.  
  
* * *  
  
In the morning, Sebastian shuffles out of his room with the entire comforter wrapped around him like a cape on a Knight of Camelot. His eyes are puffy and his chestnut hair is a disaster, sticking out at odd angles in some places and flattened down against his skull in others. There are pillow lines on his face. He’s still stupidly gorgeous, and cute because he’s not as put-together as usual, and Chris wants to run over and hug him so tight he can’t breathe. He resists, staying at the table with his coffee.  
  
“Good morning, sunshine,” he says cheerily, to rolled eyes from his rumpled boyfriend.  
  
Sebastian sits across from him and drops his head dramatically down onto his folded arms on the table. “Fine,” he mumbles, muffled by his shirt and the comforter. “You win. I’m sick.”  
  
“Poor baby,” Chris says, laughing a little at his generally pitiful nature but sympathetic. He reaches over and pets Sebastian’s hair, and Sebastian nuzzles into his hand. “Symptoms?”  
  
“Headache. Still fucking cold. My skin hurts.”  
  
“Your skin?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Sebastian huffs. “Just. Everything. I hate it. Everything hurts and everything sucks.”  
  
“I’m so sorry.” Chris gets up and gets him some water, and more Tylenol.  
  
“At least you’re leaving this afternoon,” Sebastian says, as he takes the pill. “You might still avoid catching it.”  
  
“Like hell I’m leaving,” Chris tells him.  
  
Sebastian fixes him with a look. “Chris.”  
  
“It’s probably the flu, since you have a fever. I got a flu shot back in November, so I’ll be fine,” Chris tells him.  
  
“Yeah, so did I,” Sebastian returns. “It didn’t work.”  
  
“Well, in that case I’ve already been exposed,” Chris reasons. It makes perfect sense in his mind, even though Sebastian glares half-heartedly at him. “Might as well stay here, so I don’t infect a whole airplane full of other people. I can take care of you. And then if I catch it too, you can take care of me once you’re better.”  
  
Sebastian grumbles about it, but Chris made up his mind before Sebastian even woke up.  
  
“I already cancelled my flight.”  
  
“ _Chris_ ,” Sebastian whines, with approximately sixteen too many i’s; a true whine, and Chris isn’t sure he’s ever heard that before, at least outside of the bedroom. He can’t keep the grin off his face. He definitely, definitely doesn’t hate it. He’s sorry that Sebastian feels badly, but it’s unfairly adorable to see him all pouty.  
  
He doesn’t bother answering. He isn’t going to argue about it anyway, since it’s already done, so instead Chris sets about making Sebastian some tea and toast with peanut butter, and keeps sneaking glances at his sweet little frowning forehead and downturned mouth.  
  
* * *  
  
On the third day, the rash appears. It starts out on Sebastian’s chest; reddened skin and small bumps that he says are itchy. A few hours later, it’s spread to his arms and face.  
  
“Maybe I’m dying,” Sebastian suggests. On the couch again, underneath a mountain of blankets and an electric heating pad Chris bought at a store in SoHo, he theatrically continues, “maybe it’s the Plague.”  
  
“It’s not the Plague,” Chris says patiently, pressing his lips together to hold back his instinctive smile.  
  
He sits in an armchair across the room with his phone, Googling symptoms. That’s usually a terrible idea, usually searching the internet for anything worse than a stubbed toe immediately comes back with any number of worst possible scenarios, but Chris tries it out anyway. He frowns at some pictures of rashes the search engine provides.  
  
He gets up, walking over to the shivering lump of fabric on the couch. “Show me your chest.”  
  
Sebastian squints at him and smirks. No amount of illness can curb his urge to be a brat. “Not really feelin’ up to that at the moment, babe, rain check?”  
  
Chris claps his own chest and throws his head back in an exaggerated fake laugh. “Dear God, the hilarity. On death’s door and still capable of a tight five.”  
  
“I aim to please.”  
  
“I know.” Chris kneels down next to him, brushing the backs of his knuckles along Sebastian’s cheek and getting serious for just a moment, because while it was said in jest, it’s still the truth. He presses a kiss to Sebastian’s forehead. “I know, sweetheart. Now, really. Show me those pretty nipples.”  
  
Sebastian snorts, and pushes the blankets away so he can pull up his shirt and expose his speckled midsection.  
  
Chris consults the photos again, and the rash on Sebastian’s skin matches them perfectly. “Have you, uh, did you have Chicken Pox as a kid?”  
  
Sebastian shakes his head, and then his blue eyes widen. “No fucking way.”  
  
“I’m pretty sure.” Chris turns the phone and shows him the pictures. “The symptoms match. Must’ve picked it up at the children’s hospital last time you were there.”  
  
“Fabulous.” Sebastian lowers his shirt, and then abruptly drags the blankets up over his head so he’s entirely engulfed in them.  
  
“It can be bad if you get it as an adult,” Chris worries, frowning down at his phone and scrolling through the Mayo Clinic’s entry on the subject.  
  
“Fabulous,” Sebastian repeats, faint and muffled this time from inside his cocoon.  
  
Trying to remain upbeat, Chris gently jostles the pile of blankets and the sulking man underneath. “Hey, at least I can sleep in your bed again. I had Chicken Pox when I was eight and you can’t catch it again.”  
  
Sebastian makes a noise, that Chris interprets as a sound somewhere in the ballpark of acute relief, but marinated in more general dissatisfaction.  
  
* * *  
  
Chris has a conversation by phone with Sebastian’s doctor, and is given instructions to monitor his symptoms and only seek medical attention if it gets dramatically worse. They watch another kids’ movie, and then Sebastian takes a long nap, and Chris Facetimes his mom to let her know what’s going on and tries very hard not to worry himself into an anxiety attack.  
  
* * *  
  
Sebastian cuddles up to Chris in his bed as they settle in for the night, still shivering before the Tylenol kicks in, and Chris rubs his back and keeps him close, letting his own body heat seep into Sebastian’s skin and relax him enough to fall asleep.  
  
* * *  
  
The red bumps have spread to his whole body by the fourth day. They’re even on his palms and the bottoms of his feet. Sebastian is downright miserable, achy and itchy but trying with everything he has in him to avoid scratching too aggressively. Chris remembers being a kid and being told not to scratch, or the bumps would become sores and blisters and leave scars. He remembers vividly how awful it was. He remembers his mom having to duct tape oven mitts to Scott’s hands, because he was younger and not as good about resisting the urge to drag his nails over his skin.  
  
“Pass me the cheese grater, I’m tired of having skin,” Sebastian says. He’s on the kitchen floor, limbs spread out like a starfish because his fever just broke and now he’s sweating and the tile is cool against his heated flesh.  
  
“Sure, right away,” Chris responds. “Want me to speed up the process and just strangle you?”  
  
“Yes, please,” Sebastian croaks.  
  
Chris clicks his tongue in sympathy, and sits down on the floor next to him. He pumps the trigger of a spray bottle, dousing Sebastian in a fine mist of cold water. Sebastian moans appreciatively. “I’m sorry you feel so crappy.”  
  
“Bet this is really attractive, too,” Sebastian muses, staring up at the ceiling with his mouth turned into a frown. He sounds upset about it. “Covered in boils, sweating. Bet you’re struggling to keep your hands off me.”  
  
Chris sprays him right in the face, and Sebastian jumps and splutters.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“I love you, asshole.” Chris sets the bottle down on the floor beside him and leans over, taking Sebastian’s speckled face in his hands and kissing him. He means it to just be a quick peck, but he can never resist lingering just a moment longer, sliding his lips against Sebastian’s gorgeous, plump mouth, dipping his tongue in to taste.  
  
“Mm,” Sebastian responds, intelligently.  
  
“Love you when you’re all dolled up for a red carpet,” Chris continues, pressing kisses to Sebastian’s cheeks and nose, “when you’re in ripped sweatpants in my living room, when you’re gorgeous and naked against me, when you’ve had a shit day and are trying not to cry or pick a fight, and yes, when you’re sick and fever-sweating and covered in Chicken Pox. I wish you weren’t, I wish I could snap my fingers and make you feel better, but you’re not less beautiful just because you’re a bit bumpier than usual at the moment.”  
  
Sebastian cracks up, snickering against Chris’s lips. “ _Such_ a romantic.”  
  
“You know it.” Chris leans back and winks at him. “C’mon, up you get. I got some oats at the bodega yesterday, let me make you an oatmeal bath.”  
  
“Dunking me in breakfast food should definitely help,” Sebastian agrees, sarcastic because he’s miserable, as his actions betray his snark and he lets Chris pull him to his feet.  
  
“It _will_ help, Grumpy Cat,” Chris promises. Because he can, he pulls Sebastian into a brief hug, a little vertical cuddle, before he pulls him off toward the bathroom.  
  
Sebastian sits on the closed toilet seat, sweating through his t-shirt, as Chris fills his generous tub with lukewarm water and adds a cup of powdered oats to it, stirring it around with his hand. Once it’s mixed in, he adds some colder water to lower the temperature and help cool Sebastian down.  
  
When Chris turns to face him, Sebastian has an odd look on his face. “What?” Chris asks, instinctively defensive.  
  
“Nothing.” Sebastian frowns and shakes his head. “Just … you really meant all that, huh?”  
  
He blinks slowly, looking up at Chris through his eyelashes with his chin tucked down, soft hopefulness in his expression. Chris asks, “what I said in the kitchen, you mean?”  
  
Sebastian nods shyly.  
  
On his knees, Chris walks over to him. He pushes himself between Sebastian’s thighs and reaches up to guide him into another slow kiss. “Of course I did,” he murmurs. “Love you so much. No matter what.”  
  
“I love you, too.” Sebastian slides his hands lightly down Chris’s arms, and rests his forehead against Chris’s just for a moment.  
  
Chris helps him undress, peeling damp clothing off him that he tosses toward the hamper in the corner and will wash later when Sebastian’s napping again. Beautifully bare, despite the pervasive rash, Chris wants to drink him in but instead takes Sebastian’s hand and helps him into the bath. Sebastian sighs as he sinks into it, finally finding relief from the heat and the constant itch.  
  
Chris stays with him, chatting as Sebastian soaks, and helping him wash his hair because it’s been days and it’ll make him feel better to be clean – at least until the next round of fever sweats. Sebastian is smiling, a little bleary-eyed and sweet and Chris is overwhelmed by it. The nature of this thing between them, keeping it safe within their close inner circles and bouncing back and forth between three cities, means they’ve never really lived together, even though they’ve been official for years now. There have been brief rendezvous in hotel rooms and there have been longer stays in New York or Concord, sometimes stretching for weeks if they’re lucky, but Chris is aware it’s not how normal people cohabitate. He’s not ever going to be happy that Sebastian is so sick but maybe there’s a hint of a silver lining in it. Maybe it’s their first real taste of what it’s like to be with somebody in a thick-or-thin kind of way.  
  
He helps Sebastian out of the tub after twenty minutes, wrapping him in a fluffy towel and gently drying at him while Sebastian keeps smiling dreamily at him.  
  
Chris bought calamine lotion at the store as well, and he takes Sebastian back into the bedroom. He silently lays out towels on top of the comforter to protect it, and urges Sebastian to settle on his back. Chris is used to seeing him laid out bare in very different circumstances, and he wrinkles his nose sympathetically as he realizes truly how extensive the rash is. There must be hundreds of pox, and that’s only on the front half of him.  
  
Instead of commenting on it and leaving Sebastian insecure again, Chris grabs the lotion and sits next to him on the mattress. He methodically coats each sore with the pink, chalky calamine, gently massaging it in and counting in his head as he goes. Sebastian’s eyes slip closed, relaxed and enjoying the attention and the reprieve from the itch. It’s meditative, laving attention on nearly every inch of a body that Chris knows almost as well as his own.  
  
“213,” Chris says softly, as he spreads lotion over the last of the bumps on Sebastian’s feet.  
  
“That’s so many,” Sebastian whispers, but sounds only mildly distraught by it.  
  
“Turn over.”  
  
Sebastian does, sitting up and positioning himself on his stomach over the towels. If possible there seem to be more on his other side, the marks on his back so close together Chris almost can’t tell one from the next in order to keep the count as he massages. He kisses clean patches of skin on his way down, before rubbing lotion into them, and Sebastian sighs softly and relaxes further.  
  
By the time he’s finished, he’s counted 452, but he doesn’t communicate that number out loud because he’s pretty sure from Sebastian’s breathing that he’s fallen asleep. Chris caps the nearly empty bottle – he’ll have to pick up a few more and do this again tomorrow – and sets it onto the nightstand. He leans over to check, and Sebastian’s eyes are closed, his breathing slow and even. Chris gets an extra sheet from the linen closet to cover him, and finds a tiny patch of bare skin between smears of lotion on Sebastian’s forehead to press a kiss to as he tucks him in.  
  
He has all sorts of thoughts about love and commitment and forever as he shuts off the light and leaves Sebastian to rest, and because he doesn’t really have anything better to do, Chris settles on the couch and lets himself float around happily in those gooey, sentimental thoughts.  
  
* * *  
  
When Sebastian wakes up an hour later, he comes out with the comforter wrapped around his shoulders again, and without asking he falls on top of Chris on the couch, laying over him like a weighted blanket, snuggling into him and getting dried up bits of calamine lotion all over Chris’s clothes. Sebastian was right to assume Chris wouldn’t care. He’s not sure he could possibly care less, as he winds his arms around Sebastian’s back and Sebastian nuzzles against him and whispers _I love you_ into Chris’s beard.  
  
* * *  
  
On the fifth day, Sebastian wakes up in a terrible mood, because he was supposed to be on a photo shoot today and had to cancel. Of course the magazine understood, like Chris told him over and over and over they would, but Sebastian hates disappointing people. He’s sullen and quiet, answering Chris’s questions with as few words as possible, lying alone in his bedroom even though Chris knows he isn’t sleeping. Chris goes out, makes yet another trip to the corner grocery store and picks up all Sebastian’s favorite treats. Dark chocolate with chili peppers, white cheddar popcorn, the fancy Italian deli meats he treats himself to when he’s not bulking up for a role. On his way back, he passes a flower stand and spots a bouquet of daisies wrapped in sunny yellow paper. They look happy, and Sebastian deserves to be happier than he was this morning, so Chris stops and buys those, too.  
  
“For your beau?” the older woman running the stand asks.  
  
She definitely doesn’t have any idea who he is, so Chris says, “you bet. He’s sick in bed with a nasty virus right now, I figured he could use something cheery to look at.”  
  
“Aren’t you sweet,” she coos, picking a couple of long-stemmed roses from another bouquet and wrapping them up for him as well, free of charge even though he tries to insist on paying for them.  
  
Sebastian’s forehead twists into a frown when Chris returns. “You bought me flowers?”  
  
Chris shrugs as he takes the daisies from the package and finds a vase in the cupboard above Sebastian’s dishwasher. “Thought you could use some cheering up.”  
  
“I was a jerk this morning, wasn’t I?” Sebastian frets.  
  
Chris brings the vase over to the living room, and sets it in the middle of the coffee table. Then he sits on the couch next to Sebastian and pulls him into a sideways hug, kissing his hair. “No, you weren’t. You’re upset. That’s okay. Wanna watch a sad movie, give ourselves an excuse to cry?”  
  
“No.” Sebastian exhales and leans heavily into him. “Just wanna sit here with you.”  
  
* * *  
  
It’s a full week before Sebastian stops needing medication to keep his fevers under control. He itches even worse as the sores turn to scabs, and Chris gives him baths and lotion rub-downs twice a day to keep him from going out of his mind. It becomes their routine, along with movies and playing cards and ordering take-out. As Sebastian starts getting better day by day, and Chris is less silently concerned about him developing serious health complications, it begins to feel predictable and domestic and Chris would be lying if he said he doesn’t like it. A little glimpse into some possible future, when maybe one day they wouldn’t have to be a secret, and maybe one day they won’t be as busy and jet-setting as they are, and Sebastian could move for real into Chris’s farmhouse near his family and they could be an old, boring married couple, for whom a busy day consists of going grocery shopping _and_ going to Chris’s sister’s house for dinner. Chris kind of can’t wait.  
  
* * *  
  
On the ninth day, Chris wakes up to an empty bed and the sounds and smell of bacon frying wafting in from the kitchen. He grins into his pillow.  
  
Sebastian is in a t-shirt and boxers near the stove, flipping slices of bacon with metal tongs and dancing minutely to a song Chris doesn’t recognize playing over the speakers above the cupboards. Chris goes to him, wrapping his arms around Sebastian from behind and burying his face into the back of Sebastian’s neck.  
  
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Sebastian says to him, setting the last piece of bacon down and then spinning in Chris’s arms. He smiles, bright and cheery, a healthy glow back to his skin and that dull, sick look gone from his eyes.  
  
“Feelin’ better?”  
  
“Much.” Sebastian pecks a kiss to Chris’s lips. “Still itchy, but not as bad as yesterday.”  
  
“Want another bath, just in case?”  
  
Sebastian’s smile widens, and his eyes twinkle mischievously. “You’ve been enjoying that, huh? Likin’ having me helpless so you can boss me around?”  
  
“How _dare_ you,” Chris says, jokingly offended.  
  
Sebastian giggles and kisses him again. Into Chris’s lips, he softly says, “thank you, though. For taking care of me.”  
  
“I was lying,” Chris murmurs back. “I liked it a lot.”  
  
“I know. You can do it whenever you want, don’t have to wait for the next time I almost die.”  
  
“You didn’t almost die.”  
  
“Could have, though,” Sebastian reasons. “If not for my excellent nurse.”  
  
“Damn it, I should’ve been wearing a sexy nurse’s uniform all this time,” Chris groans, truly annoyed that he hadn’t thought of that earlier.  
  
Sebastian snickers again, and leans further into him. “Next time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me [on tumblr](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/) [or twitter](https://twitter.com/turningthedials) if you want!


End file.
